Bob Carr, Australia's foreign minister, whose brother died after a heroin overdose, has urged the decriminalisation of low-level drug use, after a report concluded the war on the scourge was lost.

His comments were at odds with Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, who said tough policing was the answer while the government's chief law officer expressed a measure of scepticism about the new report.

"A bit of modest decriminalisation, de facto decriminalisation at the edges, simply freeing up police to be doing the things they ought to be doing, would be a sensible way of going about it," Mr Carr told the Seven Network.

He added to fellow broadcaster ABC that by doing so "we wouldn't have armies of police patrolling outside nightclubs and pubs hoping to snatch someone who's got an ecstasy tablet in his or her pocket or purse".

"And we wouldn't be having police chasing individual users of marijuana."

During his time as premier of New South Wales, Mr Carr effectively eliminated criminal penalties for individual marijuana use in the state and opened Australia's first legal heroin injecting room.

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His stance followed the report by think tank Australia21 released on Tuesday that said the war on drugs had failed and Australia should consider legalising some substances such as cannabis.

The report was compiled by a high-profile group of Australians, including former state premiers, health ministers, a former police commissioner and a director of public prosecutions.

It called for a fundamental rethink of current policies to tackle the drug trade that it said had driven the scourge underground and allowed organised crime to flourish.

Every year some 400 Australians die from illicit drug use. The victims included the 64-year-old Carr's younger brother Greg back in the 1980s.

"The key message is that we have 40 years of experience of a law and order approach to drugs and it has failed," said Michael Wooldridge, a former national health minister in conservative leader John Howard's government.

The report did not propose a specific set of reforms, but said its purpose was to reignite serious debate on the problem.

"It is time to reactivate Australian debate on this matter, drawing attention to the accountability of governments for allowing an unacceptable situation to persist, and the fact that the community has allowed this to happen," it said.

But Gillard said decriminalisation was not the answer, insisting the focus instead should be on tough policing and providing treatment options for users.

"I'm not in favour of decriminalisation of any of our drug laws," she told reporters.

"Drugs kill people, they rip families apart, they destroy lives and we want to see less harm done by drug usage.

"So we want to make sure we are supporting people to get treatment options and we are getting our police to do what they rightly should be doing which is policing our laws on drugs."

Attorney General Nicola Roxon earlier said the government was open to discussing new ways of tackling illegal drug use but warned there was a high threshold of community resistance to relaxing existing laws.

"As a government we're always interested and happy to engage in debate," she said.

"But there's a pretty high threshold that they're going to have to get over to convince, not just the government but the community, that this would be a positive step."